This book is published on the occasion of Marisa Merz exhibitions held at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice in 2011 and at the Fondazione Merz in Turin in 2012. “Non corrisponde eppur fiorisce” (“It doesn’t match, yet it flourishes”) the exhibition was held at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice.

The ideas and suggestions arising from the meeting between artist and Fondazione expand and blossom in a development whereby the historic and new works by the Turinese artist were able to hold a dialogue with the spaces and collections of old art collected by the Querini family. Marisa Merz work of art is always under way, like an “infinite painting”, a form of painting that is unstoppable in its indeterminacy, which struggles to circumscribe the material she uses (paper, pencil, wax, copper wire woven by hand into interminable, enormous meshes) in a clear configuration.

The notion of time in the work is revealed in the space dimension, not in the historical one. The works are like stopping points within a constant flow that is existence, and the exhibitions are nothing other than stopping points and points of correspondence that manifest themselves within a space. Marisa’s “nomadic” work, which originates within a context and then adapts itself to the most varied of contexts, seemed to mould itself perfectly to the dense space of the Querini. “Disegnare, disegnare, ridisegnare, il pensiero immagine che cammina” (“Drawing, drawing, redrawing, the thought moving image”) brings together an intense yet light, delicate yet energetic selection of works by Marisa Merz, on show in the spaces of the Fondazione Merz for the first time since its opening in 2005. Laid out in the space, they come together in an atemporal sequence.

The series reveals unusual forms, sizes and elements; drawings that follow on from each other in a series hold a dialogue with works woven together with copper wire, forming dumb musical scores on the walls; the essential nature of the unfired clay or bronze sculptures combines with the complexity of the large faces created through a superimposition of signs and materials. The exhibition reveals a soul constantly seeking to give form to thought, stirred by the incessant emergence of new questions.